Various outdoor cooking appliances such as gas grills, charcoal grills and the like have been designed through the years. As a general matter all of the outdoor cooking appliances have a cooking surface, and typically include a cover which is hingedly or otherwise moveably mounted relative to the cooking surface so that the food being prepared on the cooking surface may be covered during the cooking process. This process of covering the food may achieve several benefits, among them being suppressing any fire that may be generated during the cooking process as may be occasioned by grease drippings and the like engaging the burners, or combustible fuel positioned below the cooking surface, or further, to enhance the flavor of the food as by exposing the food to increasing amounts of smoke as might be generated through the cooking process.
As many know who have used these outside cooking appliances, small fires do erupt in these outdoor grills and cooking appliances due to the presence of highly combustible fat which drips from meats, chops and the like, during the cooking process. If an individual, who is cooking a food product is unaware of this fire, especially if the cover of the cooking appliance is in covering relation relative to the cooking surface, then the food being grilled may be damaged and rendered completely unusable. To address this problem, many cooks often will stand close watch over their cooking appliances and will frequently open the covers to ensure that no fires are taking place that would render the food unusable.
A cooking utensil which is operable to address these and other shortcomings in the prior art practices noted above is the subject matter of the present application.